Ministers from the regional blocs of East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have agreed to launch a tripartite Free Trade Area (FTA) as a way of contributing to economic growth of the blocs and the entire continent in general. 

The decision was reached during the Tripartite Sectoral Committee of Ministers that concluded on Saturday in Bujumbura, Burundi.

The meeting agreed that the tripartite summit of Heads of State and Government, slated for December in Cairo, Egypt, would launch the Tripartite Free Trade Area (FTA), according to a statement released after the meeting.

The tripartite FTA will encompass 26 member states from the three blocs with a combined population of 625 million people and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $1.2 trillion and will account for half of the membership of the African Union and 58 per cent of the continent’s GDP, the statement says.

"The Tripartite FTA popularly known as the Grand Free Trade Area, will be the largest economic bloc on the continent and the launching pad for the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) in 2017,” reads part of the statement, signed by Sindiso Ngwenya, Comesa secretary-general and chairperson of the Comesa-EAC-SADC Tripartite Taskforce.

"It offers significant opportunities for business and investment within the Tripartite and will act as a magnet for attracting foreign direct investment into the tripartite region. The business community, in particular, will benefit from an improved and harmonised trade regime that reduces the cost of doing business”

Chiratidzo Iris Mabuwa, deputy minister for commerce and industry of Zimbabwe and chairperson of the ministerial meeting, hailed the agreement, describing it as a "milestone in regional and continental integration.”

"Africa has now joined the league of emerging economies and the grand FTA will play a pivotal role in the transformation of the continent,” she is quoted as saying.

"We have made significant progress in negotiations on trade in goods, and we now need to expedite negotiations on trade-related areas, including trade in services, intellectual property and competition policy to ensure equity, among all citizens of the wider region.”